There are more rumors that Benedict Cumberbatch’s character in Star Trek Into Darkness is really Khan based upon the Entertainment Weekly cover story on the movie. At one point (since changed) the listing for sales of back issues described the cover featuring Kirk and Cumberbatch’s character as Kirk and Khan. (A second cover has Kirk and Spock). This hardly proves anything as whoever set up the orders page might have simply been influenced by the rumors as opposed to having any inside information.

There initially was a lot of speculation that the villain of the second movie under Abrams (as with the second movie of the original movie series) would center around Khan. When initial previews came out, further similarities to Gary Mitchell were noticed. It is certainly possible that the movie might be influenced by one or both stories from the original series, or perhaps neither. If the Khan stories are used as an influence for this movie, the story would most likely be more along the lines of Space Seed, when Khan was first found during the original series, than Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. There probably would be some major changes from the original story to reconcile the original Khan story and what we have seen in the clips so far.

Regardless of whether the character is based upon Khan and the aftermath of the Eugenics War, we can be certain that J.J. Abrams will be more careful in not tying himself to a history of the near future. When the original series was released in the mid 1960’s, it did not seem likely that people would still be watching Star Trek in the 1990’s and beyond when the Eugenics Wars were written to occur. (I have not read the books, but I have heard that they do attempt to reconcile this inconsistency between the Star Trek history and what we have observed by having the Eugenics War be more clandestine than the open all-out war I previously imagined). Abrams has already taken large steps to free himself from Star Trek canon by having a time line independent of the previous shows and movies. I question whether he would want to tie himself to a back story of a war in the 1990’s making me suspect that even if the character is modeled on Khan the back story will be different.

It was only in response to questions on the subject, but Joss Whedon has kept speculation alive about a return for Firefly:

Cancelled by Fox in 2002 before its first season had even run its course, the sci-fi western Firefly frequently lands on lists of TV shows that fans would love to see resurrected. But more than a decade on, there’s obviously no hope Firefly will return. Is there?

“I’ll never really accept it,” Whedon said of the end of Firefly, when I spoke to him during his stop in Toronto a while back. “And I always, in the back of my head, think, ‘What if I could get the old gang back together?’ ”

“Well, you know, it’s something I would love to do,” Whedon said. He even admits to being a sucker for this sort of punishment: “When I made Serenity (2005’s feature film continuation of Firefly’s storyline), I said here’s one thing I’ll never do again — a movie based on something that some people know about and some people don’t, with tons of characters who all know each other and who you have to introduce.

“And then my second movie was The Avengers.”

Of course, there are all kinds of obstacles preventing any television or film resurrection of Firefly. Not the least of which is — spoiler alert! — fan-favourite character Wash (Alan Tudyk) was unceremoniously killed in Serenity. (One diehard fan recently analyzed Wash’s death in an attempt to prove the Reaver harpoon that impaled him could never have penetrated Serenity’s hull. Unfortunately, the movie math held up)…

Firefly’s flame has not been fully, irrevocably extinguished — “Part of me is like, ‘God, it would be great when I finish Avengers 2 to do that,’ ” Whedon said — but given the mountains of exhausting work Whedon already has on his plate, the odds don’t look good for Capt. Mal and company.

The BBC is talking about offering episodes of some shows on line on their iPlayer before the shows are aired. This is yet another reason to get the Hola Unblocker add on for Firefox or Chrome which, among other things, allows people outside of the UK to access iPlayer. It also allows people to view Netflix in countries where it is not available. Yes, there are other ways to do this, but this appears to be the simplest.

I don’t know which shows will be available ahead of the broadcast date, but the latest BBC genre show worth getting (whether by downloading or iPlayer) is Utopia. I don’t want to give anything away (and I’ve only seen some of the episodes) but it involves a graphic novel which appears to contain secret information and a government conspiracy to get more information about it, among other evil activities.

Community returned this week, once again up against The Big Bang Theory, showing why VCR’s and DVR’s are essential. The two questions coming into the season were whether the show would be turned into a more conventional sitcom and whether it would suffer quality-wise without Dan Harmon. The answer to the first question appears to be no, with the first episode even including a safe place in Abed’s head which showed the difference between Community and conventional sitcoms.

The show is still filtered by different show runners and it will be necessary to see more to determine how the show stands up to Dan Harmon’s work. One difference from the start of the season is that there is now a relationship between Britta and Troy. The lack of such relationships between main characters did differentiate Community from most other sitcoms, but this does not mean that continuing this absence is essential. What matters is how the relationship is handled, and whether it does open new avenues for stories this season without looking like every other sitcom relationship. I was glad to see that Chang was just seen briefly at the end. His character works best in small doses.

New show runners Moses Port and David Guarascio were interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter. They are hopeful that Community might get a fifth season since NBC is losing 30 Rock and The Office. They did find the delay in airing to be a disadvantage since all the episode are now filmed and they could not take fan reaction into account, which might have been helpful with the changes this season.

TWoP: It’s been fun to watch how Britta and Annie’s friendship has evolved over the course of the show. Has that been equally enjoyable for you both to play?
Gillian: I like that it flipped at a certain point and Annie started mentoring Britta.
Allison: Yeah, it’s always been a sisterly relationship. It was a bit competitive at first with Jeff, but we got that out of the way very quickly and then it was always Annie looking up to Britta. And now it’s flipped around and it’s like, “Maybe I can give her some advice.”
Gillian: Yeah, it took Annie a little too long to realize that Britta didn’t know what the hell was going on. I really enjoyed the “Blade” episode last season where she was calling me a lying junkie and locking me in her bedroom. And it’s interesting to see that dynamic play out this season with Britta joining the Troy/Abed/Annie household sometimes.

TWoP: Community is a big target for ‘shippers, who have paired up pretty much every study group partner at this point. Have you ever seen any Annie/Britta shipping?
Alison: Oh yeah.
Gillian: Yeah, definitely. Alison and I did a photo shoot for GQ that probably prompted a lot of that shipping. I think we’ve seen every possible fan combination. Donald [Glover] sent me some fan porn of Troy and Britta that someone had sent to him.
Alison: I saw some with Troy and Abed.

TWoP: So you do read Community fan fic?
Alison: Just the porn. [Laughs]
Gillian: I read enough to know what it was and then I was like, “Oh my!”
Alison: I just saw pictures! Mine was like pornographic cartoons.
Gillian: Oh, mine was a written-out thing. I just scanned it.

TWoP: Maybe someone can go through and change all the names, publish it and it can become the next 50 Shades of Grey.
Gillian: Yup — Seven Shades of Weird.